26 December 1797

I am very sorry you have put yourself to the trouble of explaining
to me your personal circumstances; yet I cannot convict myself of impropriety
in those words of mine that occasioned it. In mixed company I can to a certain
degree play the man of the world; but in tete-à-teteI must be simple, honest & ingenuous, & fairly say almost every thing that occurs to my mind. I
was mortified however by the temper with which you received what was meant for
a very cursory remark. Your speech about postage, backed soon after by
something of a similar tendency which I have since forgotten, extorted it from
me. By your minute detail, you seem (as far as I dare venture to judge) to
exculpate yourself.

I am much obliged to
you for what you add respecting the person2 whose confidence you at present
enjoy. I believe such confessions are fairly due, & wish I had known it
sooner. That man has something in him that instinctively repels me, & I
should despair of being upon terms of unbounded cordiality with any one of whom
he was the chosen companion. Do not construe me in this to mean more than I do.
I have a great regard for some persons that cultivate his society, & for
you I entertain a real esteem.

2 Probably Charles Lloyd (1775-1839), a recent acquaintance and someone who in the next year and into early 1799 will make Godwin's premonitions remarkably accurate and create extreme embarrassment and pain for Hays.